The central public library will be housed in a 10-storey building at its original site in the city's Shahbagh with all modern facilities by December 2024.
The 64-year-old library will temporarily be shifted to the city's Kakrail for the next three years, as the government is going to start demolishing work of the age-old building for modernisation from next month.
Two floors of the city's Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh (IDEB) will accommodate the central public library, named as Sufia Kamal National Public Library, much to the delight of the book lovers.
The library authority has already started shifting the books to the new venue that has the capacity to accommodate 400 readers at a time.
A project designed years back was finally passed in the ECNEC meeting in May last year, clearing the way for constructing a multi-storey building for the central public library with an estimated cost of Tk 5.24 billion.
The 10-storey building project is scheduled to be completed by December 2024. There will be designated corners for senior citizens and kids and separate arrangements for researchers in the building having a space of 56,138.70 square metres.
Once moved to the modern structure, the library authority will provide digital services, including e-book, e-journal, e-magazine, online membership and access to other renowned libraries across the world.
Besides, there will be an international standard auditorium, conference room and seminar hall with other required facilities.
Space constraints make it difficult for the authorities to manage a large number of reference books and newspapers. Currently, the central public library has 0.2 million books and reading materials. The library authority has converted 18, 036 books into e-books.
Talking to the FE, Director General of the Department of Public Libraries (DPL) Abubakar Siddique said the government would address all the aspects to encourage people to visit libraries and read books - modernisation of the central public library was such a step.
Though the space may not be enough in the IDEB, he said, it can accommodate around 400 readers at a time. The DG said the new multi-storey building would be constructed at the place of the old building but there would be an adequate space for people to roam around.
"It was of utmost importance to modernise the library building and make digital technologies available to book lovers," he added.
"We have talked to the Public Works Department and it will start demolishing work as per its schedule."
In the fiscal year 2019-20, the number of readers visiting the 71 government public libraries across the country was around 3,338,000.
However, the number of readers fell down to 245,000 in FY 2020-21 during the pandemic.
Mr Siddique said the pandemic caused a sharp decline in the number of readers - even public libraries were closed for several months.
The central library started its journey on February 5, 1958. It was then based on the Dhaka University campus under the cultural division of the education ministry. Later, the library was shifted to Shahbagh in 1977.
Currently, there are some 71 government public libraries under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs across the country.
Bangladesh observed the National Library Day first in 2018 to encourage people to read books.
